The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Blog

  • Wedding Sermon: Apply Your Minds to Concord

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today at the beginning of a new year to witness the creation of a new thing. The new thing is a new family, and the maker of this new thing is God almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Once upon a time, God made everything that is, from nothing,…

  • Wycliffe’s Day

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (December 31) is the day that John Wycliffe died of natural causes in 1384. He was an all-around scholar, excelling in philosophy, theology, and languages. His doctrines and his agitations for the reform of the church got him in trouble with the authorities, but he was not actually killed for any of that. In…

  • When Earth's Last Picture is Painted

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    WHEN Earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it –lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew! And…

  • Happy Birthday, Rudyard Kipling

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    Fred Sanders
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    Question: “Do you like Kipling?” Answer: “I don’t know, I’ve never kippled.” Today (December 30) is the birthday of Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), the enormously popular writer who was the first English author to win the Nobel Prize in literature (1907) in his early 40s. But aside from a couple of childrens’ stories (The Jungle Book…

  • The Unique Inwardness of the Psalms

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Here is the best section of William Gladstone’s chapter on the Psalms, from pp. 184ff of The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture. No comment, except to point out that Gladstone’s reading of the Psalms is from the perspective of a person with deep immersion in the Greek classics since childhood. It is, I submit, the…

  • Gladstone: The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (December 29) is the birthday of William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), who has been called “the most eminent of the eminent Victorians.” Gladstone the politician dominated British history throughout the bulk of the nineteenth century: He became a Member of Parliament in 1832, and remained in high offices until 1895, serving four times as Prime…

  • “Jesus is Victor” (Blumhardt)

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    Today (December 28) in 1843, an unclean spirit cried “Jesus is victor!” as it departed from a young girl in Möttlingen, Germany. The possessed girl was Gottliebin Dittus, and the presiding pastor was Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805-1880). An account of the conflict can be read in the book The Awakening, available as a free pdf…

  • A Christmas Meditation (for Pastors)

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    Greg Peters
    in

    At Morning Prayer on Christmas Eve, at least in my daily lectionary, the New Testament reading is Philippians 2:5-11: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking…

  • Horatius Bonar on Being Superficial

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    Today (December 19) is the birthday of Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), Scottish preacher and writer of uncommon power and insight. He is best remembered today for the hymn ‘I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” In 1847, Bonar published a book called Prophetical Landmarks. It is a great example of the kind of premillennial theology that…

  • Happy Birthday, Phoebe Palmer

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    Fred Sanders
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    Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) was born on this day (December 17). Palmer was an American Methodist lay theologian whose writings and speaking gave shape to the American Holiness tradition, with further influence in the Higher Life movement and Pentecostalism. Beginning in 1836, Palmer and her sister Sarah (both married, but sharing a household) held a series…

  • Happy Birthday, George Whitefield

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (December 16) is the birthday of George Whitefield (1714 – 1770). One of the best biographies of Whitefield called him The Divine Dramatist, estimating that he preached over 18,000 times over the course of more than 30 years in England, in Scotland, and in America. Whitefield was part of the original methodist awakening at…

  • A.B. Simpson’s Large Christian Life

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (December 15) is the birthday of A. B. Simpson (1843 – 1919), founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Simpson was a remarkable character, one of those late nineteenth century evangelicals whose ministry held together things that seemed to fly apart during the twentieth century. Urban evangelism plus foreign missions; education plus mass outreach;…